PLANT: Perennial herbs, 5 22 cm tall. STEMS: none; plants arising from thin, creeping rhizomes, forming late season stolons, glabrous. LEAVES: simple, basal, erect; stipules reddish; petioles 20 170 mm long; blades 20 65 mm long, 22 56 mm wide, ovate to round, crenate, the base cordate, the tip obtuse. INFLORESCENCE: scapose, the pedicels to 21 cm long. FLOWERS: sepal lobes 1 2 mm long, ear like; petals almost white to pale blue or violet, the tips acute, the 3 lower petals purple veined at base, the lateral 2 usually white bearded, the lowest petal (including spur) 8 17 mm long. FRUITS: 6 7 mm long, glabrous. 2n = 48. NOTES: Bogs, stream sides: Coconino co.; 2200 2400 m (7200 7900 ft); May Jul; circumboreal, n Eur. and Asia, AK to Labrador; WA s to n CA, e to CO, ME, NH. Known in AZ only from vicinity of Woods Canyon Lake; confused with V. palustris L. REFERENCES: Little, R. John. 2001. Violaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 33(1).

Acaulescent, with slender creeping rhizomes, and freely stoloniferous, glabrous or variously hairy; petioles and peduncles usually greenish; lvs evidently crenate, broadly cordate-ovate to reniform, commonly 1-3 cm wide at anthesis, later to 8 cm, rounded to blunt to acutish above, the basal sinus more open than in no. 13 [Viola blanda Willd.]; fls fragrant or inodorous, on erect peduncles equaling or rising above the lvs; pet white, the 3 lower with brown-purple veins near the base, the 2 upper narrowly obovate, only slightly (or not at all) recurved, not twisted, the 2 lateral ones beardless or scantily bearded, straighter and more spreading than in no. 13; cleistogamous fls on prostrate or erect peduncles, with green, ellipsoid or ovoid frs 4-6 mm; seeds brown or nearly black; 2n=24. Springy land, and along cold streams, often in shallow water; Lab. and Nf. to B.C., s. to Del., O., Ind., Io., and in the mts. to S.C., Tenn., n. Ga., and Calif. Apr.-July. Our plants, as here described, are var. pallens (Banks) C. L. Hitchc., in contrast to the cordilleran var. macloskeyi, with smaller, less toothed lvs. (V. pallens)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Local in the lake area in bogs and springy or wet places, usually associated with tamarack or aspen. It is often associated with Viola incognita var. forbesii which it very much resembles.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 10

Wetland Indicator Status: OBL